Category Archives: Wedding

Our Wedding: The Venue, The Invitations, The Bridal Party + The Rings

I mean, what does one say when they are telling the story of the wedding? I’m not sure exactly where to start! There are too many details and emotions that it has been kind of paralyzing trying to write about it, so I think what I’ll do is share some of my favorite pictures and start with some of the details. (All photos courtesy of StudioKYK Photography)

(Also, lest there be any confusion, I would have been TERRIBLE at figuring out all of these details if it weren’t for my very awesome wedding planning partner in crime Kirsten from KMK Design Company. Hiring her was basically the best wedding planning thing we did!)

Sooooooo…maybe let’s start with the venue?

When we decided we were going to go all in and do a somewhat traditional wedding we wanted to do it at place that felt like our backyard but indoors and we also got indoor play centre manufacturers to make play areas for the kids. That was the entire vibe we were looking for. “Let’s find a place that feels like a really awesome version of our house, where we can invite 100+ people over for dinner.” Mmmmhmmmm. Sounds good.

We settled on a place called The Flower Farm that hit on all our major desires. Desires?…that sounds a bit saltier than I meant it to. It ticked some things off our list, ya know?

It was a cute bed and breakfast with sprawling grounds and a great backdrop for photos. We wanted to get married outside, and could really visualize ourselves doing it there:
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There was a great tree to get hitched under:
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And there was a cute barn where we could hold reception and the tables and linens were adorable:
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CHECK, CHECK, CHECK!

There were also all sorts of other details to think about. Like invitations! That was my favorite part. I wanted them to be super casual because um…WE ARE SUPER CASUAL. Here’s what we landed on:

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It was fun to match all our other signage to that casual theme:
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But I’m getting a little ahead of myself, aren’t I?

So we had a venue, a date, invites were sent, people had RSVP’d and of course we had selected our bridal parties. Garrett decided he needed eight groomsmen. EIGHT, YOU GUYS.
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It was the only non-negotiable detail in the whole shebang. 7 are friends from high school, 1 from college — and he was like “Yep, I NEED all 8 of them.” So 8 there were. 🙂

I, on the other hand, couldn’t even imagine having EIGHT BRIDESMAIDS OHMAHGAWD MY HEAD JUST EXPLODED, so I chose 4. (2 boys for every girl seemed perfect, right?) So I had my BFF and three cousins-who-feel-more-like-sisters to stand up there with me (and keep me sane!) Love these gals!
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I thought the boys looked great in their gray suits and I LOVED those ties and the boutineer!
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I think they all thought they looked pretty cute. 🙂

My ladies looked gorgeous in peacock and silver.
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And we had so much fun getting ready! I was SO SUPER NERVOUS it was crazy. They kept me sane and hydrated and breathing sort of normally 🙂
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It ended up being such a fun group!
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As for our rings we tried to browse trusted jewelry store like https://gemaandco.com/collections/radiant-cut-moissanite-engagement-rings to find the perfect diamond engagement rings — mine was obviously my engagement ring and in the end I opted not to have a band made. I kind of like how it looks on its own and figure if I really feel like I’m missing a band we can make one later.
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Garrett’s ring on the other hand is kind of a story. A month or so before the wedding I was stressing that he hadn’t gotten a ring for him yet. We were juggling lots of plates, he wasn’t worried, but I kept freaking out because I felt like we needed to find something special, try things on, be all ceremonious about it, etc.

One day I was at work and he sent me a text with a picture of this ring, asking me what I thought. I told him I liked it and suggested we go look at it that weekend. A few minutes later he texted me back and said “No worries, I just Amazon Primed it. It’ll be at the house in 2 days!” And that right there is the romantic story of Garrett’s wedding band. Bought on Prime.

Modern Love, I guess. 🙂

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So we had a venue, invites, people coming, a bridal party — we even had rings and gin! Guess it was time to get hitched, right?
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Stay tuned for the story of the wedding ceremony….

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My New Mantra

Love these boys.

The other night Garrett looked over at me in the car on the way to see our wedding DJ and said “Man, do you remember when we had hobbies?”

Ah, yes. Hobbies. Hobbies like writing this blog? And reading books? And drinking pinot noir on the patio while looking at our backyard garden? YES I DO REMEMBER THOSE DAYS, I DO. I DO. I DO!

It appears that “I DOs” are actually what’s causing the problem here though.

Life has pretty much become the cliche sum of working, wedding planning, and those other sundry things that are required to keep our lives and household running. I have replaced pinot noir drinking with toilet scrubbing and errand running — well, that’s not entirely true — I am still drinking the pinot noir. It’s more the patio sitting and gardening and relaxing that have gotten replaced. WOE!

We have all but started a construction paper chain link countdown to the wedding, not because it’s the wedding (which, I mean, of course – YAY!) but more because we have decided it shall be THE RETURN TO NORMAL LIFE! And man, I can see that up ahead as clearly as a desert oasis.

The thing is, a construction paper countdown isn’t necessary because every piece of wedding related organization that I am currently using has a practically real time countdown of “days until the wedding!” In fact, this morning I was reminded that there are 97 DAYS LEFT! As much as I would like to panic, I’m looking at this number as 97 day countdown to getting our lives back, which I am totally looking forward to.

Beyond wedding and work stuff, which make for suuuuuuuper boring blog posts — we’ve just been doing a lot of running around and traveling lately for other weddings, graduations, and other friend commitments. Guess who is unimpressed with all this travel?
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On the upside Buster hasn’t been sick since March ::::knocks wood:::: which has been a blessing on both our stress levels AND our bank accounts. THANK GOD FOR SMALL FAVORS. We also had to leave him with someone other than my mother for the first time in the 3 years he’s lived with us, and I didn’t die of anxiety! YAY! I mean, it did expose a propensity for helicopter parenting that I need to get in check before we have actual children, but we have time I tell ya…we have time. (But maybe not much. We shall see. ;))

My workouts have been inconsistent for the first half of this year and my diet right now is crap; however, after a huge work project/transition that ended on June first (HALLELUJAH) I think I just may have the energy to get my butt in gear during this home stretch before the wedding. I’ll let you know how that goes. Well…maybe. Promises are not my strong suit right now in the blogging arena.

While I don’t anticipate any type of supermodel transformation and I’m not planning on adopting any new regimens or throwing a Whole 30 in the mix, I’d just like to go into my wedding feeling energized — which for me that requires a good balance of diet and exercise. I say that like it is unique piece of information. HA.

Anyway…97 days until normal. 97 days until normal. 97 days until normal.

It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAFACEPALM.

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Houston, We Have A Maid Of Honor, And Other Tales From The Weekend.

Happy Monday!

First things first — is anyone else having ALL OF THE THINGS happening in April? I don’t know about you but my calendar is so nutty right now I’m having a hard time keeping track of what day it is. Between work projects and weekend happenings, this month is flying right by.

The good news? It’s an abundance of AWESOMENESS! So it excites me to talk about it. This past weekend I took a little road trip (Ok, well it was not so little, it was 6 hours down and five and a half hours back, ha!) down to the Central Coast — one of my favorite places!  6839512699_ef41533aa4_bI feel super lucky that smack dab in the middle of one of my favorite places, lives one of my favorite people. I’ve talked about my friend Sarah here before, and while we are no longer roommates or neighbors, I try and get down to see her at least once a year.

I set out on Friday afternoon with a giant coffee
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Yep, it was caffeinated. Did I mention that this has been a crazy month and I got back on the sauce? COFFEE IS MY DRUG. What can I say? (I’m back off it again, but man do I ever miss it.)

Anyway, 6 and a half hours later (GRRR Friday night Traffic) I rolled into town. I was there because on Saturday Sarah was having a baby shower! She’s due in the middle of June and I couldn’t be more excited for her. She’s going to be a rockstar mom.
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But I also went down with my own agenda, which was: asking her into being my maid of honor. Matron? I hate the word matron, but I guess that is more accurate. Like I mentioned, Sarah is about to have her first baby, and 3 months later I am getting married, so I didn’t even know if it would be feasible. But I also really, really, REALLY hoped it was.

Sarah is one of my absolute besties, and of course was there when Garrett and I met and started dating, so she has seen it all! I’m happy to report that she was totally on board, and not even freaked out by it! The best thing about Sarah is her mellow personality. It takes a lot to make her anxious, which is why we’re a great pair. I can do the freaking out for the both of us.

We had a fun (but quick weekend) doing baby shower stuff, and heading to the beach with her dogs.
Rollin' with my homie.

Can you just see the mischief written all over her dog Ted’s face? He’s not all naughty though — he is very good at helping unpack. 🙂
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Just as quickly as I unpacked though, it was time to pack back up. On Sunday morning it was back home to Sacramento, and back to everyday life. See what I mean about April? WHIRLWIND!

It was a great weekend though, and so good to catch up with a friend, check off a wedding item, spend some solo time on the road, and still have enough time to meal prep for the week.

This coming weekend we don’t have a single thing planned though, and I absolutely want to keep it that way. I need some chill time with Garrett and my own little puppy so I can do some recharging. And let’s be real, some wedding stuff. 🙂 Only 5 more months…

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Saving The Date

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Garrett + I have been pretty useless on the wedding planning front since we got engaged. If you listed out all of our combined strengths, party planning probably wouldn’t even make it in to the top 100. While we are both super excited to get married, we haven’t been super pumped to get the ball rolling with like, actual wedding planning. Even Pinterest can’t save us.

We’ve looked at a few places, and liked all of them actually, but no place has really lit that fire inside us to make us want to spend our hard earned time and cash to have a party there. It’s not that we couldn’t imagine getting married at any of these places, it’s just that we’ve walked out of most of them feeling overwhelmed by the amount of tasks we’d have to add to the To-Do list by committing to any of them.

We’ve considered eloping, and walked through a number of different scenarios that all sounded neat but just not quite right. We’re excited. We want to celebrate. We want to start this new phase of our life with the family and friends that have supported us along the way so running off and getting hitched has seemed enticing but also not quite a fit. We’ve tossed around the destination wedding idea but ultimately ruled that idea out as well.

We’ve been hand wringing about how other people make it look so easy to just throw together a wedding, and thought to ourselves “How can we be relatively competent intelligent people who are in love and have NO IDEA OR DESIRE to pick venues or colors or attire or first dance songs?” but the answers haven’t come.

Finally in October we looked at the calendar and realized we were going to a wedding every single weekend that month (well, except one and on that weekend I was going to a baby shower! ha!) For our sanity we took the entire month off thinking about any sort of nuptial progress. But as November started we realized that we’ve been engaged almost 6 months and we’ve made absolutely zero progress.

Until today.

On Friday we made a super last minute appointment to check out a venue about 30 minutes away from our house. We headed out this morning feeling a little anxious and with zero expectations and when we left we couldn’t stop talking about ideas and thoughts and details and things to follow up on. There was a different energy there and we both left feeling like maybe we had found the spot. After a few hours of doing errands and other things we ran through all challenges of the place and all the reasons we thought it could work, and in the end we emailed the coordinator to actually reserve a specific date.

We still have two weeks to download and think about it before we have to sign any contracts or hand over any cash, but you guys: I THINK WE HAVE A WEDDING DATE. More to come when everything is finalized, but it feels like pretty exciting limbo to be in and honestly there was a huge feeling of relief to think about having a big decision in the process nailed down. It’s been a nice way to start November, and heck at this time next year we could totally be hitched!

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